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Personally i set process explorer to take the place of task manager and only open it when i need it, same with most of the stuff on my computer, not using it? dont start it! Finished with it? exit it! Of course i sometimes like to watch the little graph for fun, hehehe i need a life hey lol

I like to be able to see why the PC sometimes is very slow when I expect it not to be, and for that I find it most useful to have PEx staying in the tray / TNA so I can just point at it and be told what app is taking the most CPU at the moment. But otherwise I must agree with you: what is not useful, must die... at least until it is useful again :-)

yep, I'm a fairly cheerful and benign shark though . Only clamp my jaws around unfriendly nasty folk. A friend gave me a fridge magnet with jawj on it, said she couldn't resist, and I thought i may as well get more use out if it than just decorating my fridge.

I spose i should say what i have in my system tray (may the wrath of pedants not fall on my head for calling it that)The clock is Lclock, presently using yankee clipper, i keep trying different clip board enhancers to get the one i'm happy with.Pop peeper, keeps an eye on all emails, local pop and all the web based ones.I like to see flashing lights so i got the network connector icon there lolEvernote sits quietly in the corner as wellKaspersky internet suiteMedia monkey, to keep all my music sorted, i like it, i find it really easy to use.Sound card volume control, usually not there but i was tryin out different equalizer settings and so forth and its easy access to those.These i usually have hiddenFOOBAR, sounds better than media monkey so i have it as the player from media monkeyProcess tamerand screen shot captor is there to take a piccy of all theseAnd then theres the toolbar to my desktop, my actual desktop is empty, so i needed some way to have access to those things and this seems the easiest way ive found so far, im open to suggestions tho.Yep, thats it, those are the regular inhabitants everything else comes and goes as required.

Well; now I have said it. Are you going to mock me? Stone me (if you could)?

When absolutely nothin is going on inside the PC, Process Explorer (PEx) will use some 4-5% CPU. This is by itself maybe a little too much, but not the real problem. But if you have PEx placed to start with Windows, as I used to have it, you can watch the most of the PC starting procedure and see how much CPU each program will use. And you can see how they all battle each other to have the little power most machines have available. And see how some programs still uses a lot of CPU after they seemed to have done opening, because they must configure or whatever. If you watch this procedure and then notice the CPU usage of PEx watching over them all, then you may understand my point: Normal machines with many programs cannot afford to have a program like Process Explorer being placed early in the starting procedure, because it uses some 25% CPU during the entire startup! There is no reason to give these 25% to PEx, because the program is really not needed during start, only after the procedure have finished - and you can hardly spare so much CPU at this crucial moment.

Process Explorer only eats CPU when the CPU history graph column is onscreen, and only then is it noticible when the System Idle process graph is scrolling. Put that column all the way to the left and resize columns so it is off screen, and you will see PE take less than 1% of CPU.

Process Explorer only eats CPU when the CPU history graph column is onscreen, and only then is it noticible when the System Idle process graph is scrolling. Put that column all the way to the left and resize columns so it is off screen, and you will see PE take less than 1% of CPU.

C

I knew it was too bad to be true. Of course Process Explorer will not use too much CPU - if you set it right. :-) But what you are telling me implies that PEx only uses this much CPU when it is displaying the window, not when it is merely an icon in the tray. I have removed all the fancy displaying of this and that, and will now again set PEx to start with Windows, because it really is an must have app in the system tray.And I will relax, knowing that Process Explorerof course not uses too much CPU. :-)

Thanks, Carl.

[Edit: Process Explorer's CPU usage is now 1Â½% when the window is open]

Process Explorer only eats CPU when the CPU history graph column is onscreen, and only then is it noticible when the System Idle process graph is scrolling. Put that column all the way to the left and resize columns so it is off screen, and you will see PE take less than 1% of CPU.C

First of all: my Process Explorer has "always" replaced TaskManager, so it is not going to be replaced by CPU Monitor, even though this seems to be very fine indeed.

Next: Inside Process Explorer I have disabled the graph-windows (I am surprised by the way cthorpe have chosen to do this; one may want to just right-click and click Select Columns), so Process Explorer is not using more than 1Â½% CPU with the window open, and of course a lot less when minimized to tray icon.

Finally: Inside Startup Delayer I right-clicked Process Explorer and clicked Classify As... System Process. So now Process Explorer is not displaying the CPU usage of Process Explorer! ;-) and so must be using even less CPU.

Next: Inside Process Explorer I have disabled the graph-windows (I am surprised by the way cthorpe have chosen to do this; one may want to just right-click and click Select Columns), so Process Explorer is not using more than 1Â½% CPU with the window open, and of course a lot less when minimized to tray icon.

The reason I just move the column off the screen rather than turning it off is so I can scroll over to see it if I want to check the history of a process.

I'm not sure about the effects of grading a program as a 'system process'. I was just thinking that when I am using Process Explorer as my Task Manager then it actually is a system process, and deserves being treated as such. The consequence can't be higher CPU usage!

hmm.. that's strange because i just checked and the page is still there.. you're not behind some corporate firewall, are you..

according to the website, there is no specific advantage other than the "same old detestible (sic) Microsoft-EULA".. as for me, i just keep the link handy in case Microsoft decides to discontinue any of the existing tools..

PS. I just tested last years dud link (http://alax.info/blog/ntfslinks) & it works now -at the time, as I say, it didnt work for me for weeks literally & did for everyone else -I was starting to get a bit of a complex at the time ...